


Running Together

by Living_Underground



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, On the Run, Post-Episode: s09e19-20 The Truth, just a little insight into what when on as they traveled the country
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24268636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Living_Underground/pseuds/Living_Underground
Summary: Mulder and Scully on the run. It's been done loads. You don't have to read it.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 1
Kudos: 30





	Running Together

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, this is basically just a collection of my personal headcanons for that time they spent on the run. But I wrote it out in a kind of fic-ish way. 
> 
> Also, a Tumblr post from @plaidscully reminded me how much when I watched it as a kid I totally believed they just had the time of their life on the run. Like, these days I'm very...'and they were both terribly depressed and resented one another for the loss of their son and the loss of their social life (haha wot social life?) and they probably argued all the time' etc etc, because IWTB and S10 basically ruined my childhood insistence that they were so much happier now they could just be themselves together. 
> 
> So yeah, this is basically just a tribute to baby me, who insisted they got their happily ever after (I may also as a child have insisted they went and found William and took him along with them on their constant road trip and just, y'know, went hunting aliens for fun instead of for the government - I'd watch the heck out of that show tbh, why didn't Chris Carter hire 6yr old me to write the show instead?) and also to @plaidscully's Tumblr post for reminding me that, fuck yeah bff road trip! (also, Mulder totally calls it their 'fuck yeah bff road trip' and Scully rolls her eyes and smiles because he's a dork, but he's her dork).

It was one of the first, and only, luxuries she purchased when they were on the run.

Seven nights in seven different motel rooms with seven crappy showers and seven even crappier beds. Seven days sat cramped in cars driving for hours on end.

Seven days with Mulder right by her side.

Seven days with Mulder right by her side after so long of not seeing him at all.

So much had happened.

Part of her was amazed they hadn’t just stayed in bed for the last seven days, barely straying from one another’s sides.

Part of her was amazed she hadn’t snapped sooner.

She’d yelled at him when he was hurrying her out of their room at stupid o'clock in the morning. The rain had been pounding down in a deluge all night and she’d had a bed-spring sticking out uncomfortably no matter how she lay and the shower had been cold and the coffee they had made in the little kitchenette cheap and bitter. She was tired and hungry and just wanted to take a moment to do her jacket up before running to the car, but he was impatient, paranoid, wanting to be on the move already. Something had to give.

And so, she’d screamed. And cried. And lashed out when he tried to comfort her.

She wasn’t being fair on him: she knew that. But it was hard being around him all the time after so long apart. It wasn’t that they didn’t click anymore, or that they didn’t love one another. No. It was just that they had been through so much in the past year, the past nine years, and that neither of them was particularly good at talking about it. It was that they had developed habits and routines that hadn’t involved the other. Their paranoia had increased but in different ways.

It was the little things that grated, the things that always had. The things that, when they spent nights together before would irk, but not trigger an actual reaction other than maybe a sigh and an exasperated comment. The fact that he couldn’t squeeze a tube of toothpaste properly. The fact that in the middle of the night he always left the toilet seat up.

Before, though, she’d had time to come to terms with those things. Get used to them. But this time they had been thrown together, with no space and no time to themselves. No time apart to appreciate all the good things about one another.

‘I’m going out,’ she’d said with a challenge in her eye, perfectly calm after her outburst, zipping her jacket and pulling up the hood.

‘Scully, we’re leaving now!’

‘I’ll be back in an hour!’ she’d felt his eyes burning holes in the back of her navy waterproof as she walked, head held high, though the inch of water that covered the parking lot. It took her half an hour to find a department store and another fifteen minutes to locate what she was looking for.

Another half-hour walk back and she found Mulder pacing back and forth in the rain, yanking at his hair and worrying his bottom lip to shreds with his teeth. As soon as he saw her he bundled her into his arms, running his hands across her, searching for bullet wounds or bruises.

‘I thought I’d lost you.’

As his hand reached up to cup her cheek, she turned her head to kiss his palm, her lips lingering before she looked back at him, eyes locked. ‘Not in this lifetime.’

He’d seemed to notice just how soaked they both were then, picking her up and backing into their motel room, tripping over the dresser on his way to the bathroom. He placed her down, tucking a wet strand of hair behind her ear. She’d dyed it a dull brown their first night on the run and the darkness the water gave it made it almost black. ‘I still can’t get used to this.’

‘I know. It doesn’t look like me in the mirror,’ a sad smile touched her lips, echoing his.

‘Hey, you’re still you. I promise. I’d tell you if you weren’t.’

‘You’d probably shoot me if I weren’t me, Mulder. Or try and figure out what sort of alien had caused me to not be me.’

He considered for a moment before conceding with a shrug, ‘probably.’

‘I think I’ll go blonde when it fades. It might not look as dark then.’

‘It’s more permanent, too,’ not sure whether that was a good thing, or a bad one. Permanent meant that she’d have to dye it less, just touch up the roots now and then. Cheaper in the long run. Permanent also reminded them both that they still didn’t know how long this would be for, that this was their life now. That they were wanted felons, that they had nowhere to go. They had a few contacts, Skinner, Doggett, Reyes, who they would be able to call once in a blue moon, when they needed money or new identities or just someone to talk to when they couldn’t talk to one another, but they had no friends to smile at, no fixed abode to settle down in, no sofa to curl up together on and watch a movie.

Their permanently impermanent life. One he had trapped her in. Not for the first time this week, he thought about telling her to go home, go back to her mom, find someone who could love her in a way that meant keeping her safe without forcing her into a life of one shitty motel after the other. But then he remembered that it was Scully, his Scully, who never took no for an answer, and who, if she really wanted that, would have left him the minute she’d gotten him safe in that first motel.

‘You’re shivering,’ he brushed his lips against hers, tugged down the zipper on her jacket, peeled her t-shirt up over her head, dropping it to a sodden pile on the floor.

‘Warm me up then,’ she reached around him to turn the shower on, drowning out both of their thoughts, the thoughts that echoed so loudly on the tile of the tiny space.

* * *

It soon became a daily ritual. He’d go out to get breakfast and papers, baseball cap and sunglasses donned, then sit in the car and check the map to plan their route for the day. She’d spend an hour on her yoga mat, stretching out the tightness in her back and shoulders and meditating away the irritation that came from both of their agitations at being on the run combined.

It helped some. That hour break from him became her salvation. She loved him. Of course, she did. She had for so long. But she was human, and Mulder was…Mulder. He was intense. His paranoia and hers were volatile together. It didn’t take much to set either of them off; a backfiring car, the waitress in a diner staring just a little too long. Everything had become a threat.

She didn’t like her new yoga mat as much as her last one. _Her_ yoga mat, the one her mother had probably thrown out when clearing her apartment, was worn through but it was hers. It had lost the acrylic smell of the foam, had imprints of her hands where she had placed them repeatedly over the years. This one was cheap, thinner than her last one, more plasticky. But it did the job. It stopped her from slipping. It meant she didn’t have to touch what passed for carpet in the many motel rooms she doubted had ever been vacuumed.

As the year wore on, as Mulder’s back – never having been in a particularly good state – started to cause him more pain, cracking whenever he got out of the car, seizing up when they were driving down long, straight highways, she started inviting him onto her mat after her hour in the morning. She’d spend time stretching him out, aligning his hips, wincing at the pop of joints. They didn’t need to talk during this time. She’d mould him into the shape she wanted him and he’d moan as tension flowed away. She started scouring thrift shops for books on anatomy and yoga, reading them as Mulder drove them from place to place.

They weren’t unhappy. Far from it; they were together. _Together_ when so much had kept them apart. They held one another’s hands as they walked the aisles of grocery stores. They brushed lips outside their motel rooms, brushed much more _inside_ their motel rooms. They planned where they went next by what they wanted to see next. They took a trip to the Liberty Bell, just for the memories. They went to places they had been before, places they hadn’t. Sometimes they spoke of the good ole’ times, sometimes they spoke of the future. Never important things. Just things they’d like to do, dreams they have. She told him once she wanted gingham curtains in her kitchen, to remind her of warm summer days with watermelon smiles and children’s laughter, he promised her that one day he’d get her a kitchen with gingham curtains, and fill it with watermelon smiles and _their_ laughter.

They acted like a normal couple. Changing names every few weeks, hopping bank accounts as irregularly as possible, zigzagging across the country, picking the most inconspicuous hair colours out together, because after watching Scully change hair colour every three towns Mulder figured he too should put some effort into his appearance, and Scully woke up to his guilty face bellow a mop of brassy orange – reading the instructions had never really been his thing.

Occasionally they would find themselves murmuring about their son. Scully would smile sadly and tell him how much he’d looked like his daddy. Laugh about the intense stare he had. Some things were never discussed. The dreams she had of him, growing up. Waking up, a stifled gasp as she blinked into the dark room to find not her two-year-old staring back at her, but her sleepy Mulder, questioning if she was okay. A small nod, murmured ‘flukeman’ and she’d turn away from him, from that nose and that intense gaze, settle back against him into his warmth as his arm wrapped around her, held her tight, and she’d close her eyes once more and think about a son she should be holding. 

They’d both lost so much. Sisters, sons, parents. Bodily autonomy. Faith. Trust. But they had each other. That’s what they told themselves. It wasn’t a perfect life, certainly not ideal. But they still had a warm body to hold onto at night. They still had laughter and bad jokes and even worse pick-up lines that were no longer necessary but reminded them both of easier times. They had a second-hand polaroid camera Mulder had found whilst Scully was searching for second-hand books, a polaroid they snapped moments of their strange little life together on, tucking them into the covers of books, one another’s wallets, side pockets of duffle bags, photos that would often not be found until years later, eliciting a laugh at the memory. They had shared yoga, time for meditation both together and apart in the morning. They had loving looks shared across dinner and hot sex after dinner and slow lovemaking in the middle of the night when the storm outside kept both of them awake.

They had each other. That’s all that really mattered, right?

**Author's Note:**

> I always feel like I have to justify everything I say. It's a problem. I'm not going to today though. But I am going to justify not justifying anything. Wait, does that defeat the purpose? I'm confused. Okay, bye.


End file.
